Day 1 Garden of Gethsemane
and The Dead Sea
22.2.2013
Today we woke up early and caught a taxi to the Garden of Gethsemane. The weather was boiling hot at a temperature of 40 degrees celcius.When we arrived we had to pay an entrance fee of 10 Israeli Shekels. As we walked inside the big stone walls we stood there in amazement thinking of how beatuiful the garden was. It was breath taking. We were about to go and explore, when a man came up to us and started yelling at us in Hebrew. He eventually figured out that we did not speak Hebrew. So he started talking to us in English and explained that if we follow the arrows on the trees that we would find a memorial stone showing the place where Jesus prayed. So we decided to take his advice and we followed the arrows.
Finally when we arrived, there was a gaint statue of Jesus, with a plaque under his feet that said: THIS IS WHERE JESUS PRAYED. We then had lunch on a bench seat near the statue of Jesus. For lunch we had a sandwich and a chocolate bar. YUMMY!
We then caught another taxi to the Dead Sea. There we got changed into our swimmers and followed along with the local people covering ourselves in mud. We were the mud monsters. The Dead Sea mud contains high levels of magnesium, calcium, potassium, strontium, boron and iron. Making the mud very good for our skin.
Because of how much salt there is in the water we spent a long time relaxing and reading magazines while floating in the water. We then saw a sign for stand up paddle board lessons, and we thought that it didn't sound to hard because the board would float very well. We payed 20 Israeli Shekels for a hour lesson. It may look easy but it definitly wasn't.
Amelia fell of first as she was getting on I then tried to get on and did the same. After an hour had passed we were very tired from our lesson. We caught another cab back to the hotel.
Our hotel had an old style and is apparently 200 years old. Inside and along the corridors it has torch shaped lights hanging from the stone walls. For dinner we had a meal with fish and bread. It was very delicious. We then went to bed. Goodnight.
Day 2 The Shepherds Field, Church and Chapel
23.2.2013
Today we woke up at 9:30 after a nice long refreshing sleep. Our muscles were very sore and stiff. We had some toast, bacon and eggs for breakfast. We caught a sightseeing bus today so that we could learn about all the different buildings. We got off at the second stop, Shepherds fields. There we saw many people walking up and down fields with their sheep. We walked along the grassy fields for a little while before coming to a large stone courtyard. Inside the courtyard was many gardens full of plants. There was also lots of markets along the outsides of the courtyard selling things that people had made from straw and grass woven together. We had our photo taken and then a woman wove two people that looked like us, they even had a hand grip that if you hold them together you could make them hold hands.
We then walked up some stones steps into a big Church with a stone shepherd out the front above the door. We went in. The church was circular with a domed roof. Inside were three big paintings. The centre painting was of the nativity. Either side were pictures of shepherds seeing the star and angels that announced Jesus' birth. The church was quite small with a large altar in the middle of the marble floor, and wooden bench seats around the outside.
We walked back outside to the courtyard where we went down some stairs leading to a small chapel cut into the rock like a cave. Inside the chapel was all made of stone. The floor had been tiled and some stone steps had been built for seating, but basically this was a church in a cave. The ceiling had a few dangling lights from the rocks.
`On the way home we stopped at a little restuarant and had some food which tasted nice although we werent sure what it was.
Day 3 City of Mosaic
24.2.2013
Unfortunately today is our last day on the Armchair Tour of the Land of Jesus. So we will finish our trip with a memorable visit to Madaba, also known as the ‘City of Mosaic.’ Madaba is best known for its beautiful mosaic work especially the 6th century Mosaic Map of the Holy Land and Jerusalem which covers the floor of the Greek Orthodox Church of St. George.
It was a dusty, bumpy bus ride on the Old Kings Highway; we thought we would never arrive. Our first stop was to the Greek Orthodox Church of St. George to see the mosaic map. We were blown way with the vivid colour of the stone pieces. Our tour guide told us that the mosaic has 2 million pieces. The map shows hills, valleys, villages and towns as far as the Nile Delta. It is the oldest known map of the Holy Land.
Our next two stops were to two very old churches, the Church of the Apostles which had a lovely mosaic of dancing pigeons and then the Church of the Virgin which had lots of wonderful mosaics. Our guide told us that Madaba was an old town that existed during bible times and it was important during the Christian era.
We sat outside the church with our tour group, our guide had organised a picnic lunch so that we could try some local food. We ate Ara'yes - spicy mincemeat wrapped in flatbread and we had some lime mint juice to drink. But the best was the sweets, I tried the Harisa and Keely had the Halawa. After lunch we heading off to our last stop, the Archaeological Museum. This little museum has lots of interesting pieces which show a variety of pictures like flowers, plants, birds, fish, animals and different types of activities like hunting, fishing and farming. There are also well preserved houses and pieces of mosaics that have been bought here from different places.
We were exhausted, after all the walking that we had done and couldn’t wait until we got on the bus for our trip back to the hotel. Keely was asleep even before the bus left.
